TrueGentleman

You mean "The Problem Isn't Zack Snyder. The Problem Is You."?

I stopped by this thread well after it was underway and when it had expanded from the original topic into a discussion about his other films - which I have seen, did not enjoy, and would not recommend - as well as the issues of movie adaptations, genre reception, and the issue of influence, which are of great interest to me. Aside from Snyder's movies themselves, the other problem that I have with Snyder's lurching zombie-like career from mediocrity to mediocrity is that he's becoming shorthand for "geek auteur" as a way for the mainstream to dismiss the genres that we care about (even though they're only zombies, superheroes, and exploitation flicks). That he should have been given the directorial duties for the next Superman movie with such a track record and reputation is a bad omen for the comic book movie genre.

Incidentally, trolls, I'm given to understand, post only for teh lulz. Would that discussing Snyder's films gave me much enjoyment. Duty calls, however.

How about her role in The Trojan Women? Sure, it's an adaptation of a Greek tragedy, but that plays is nevertheless firmly rooted in classical mythology, with the characters existing in a world controlled by gods (even though there's no deus ex machina in Euripedes' bleak outlook).

One could also argue The Great Race[/URL] was a live-action comic book.

Before that, he played Marley's ghost opposite Albert Finney as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1970 film version [/URL]of that famous fantasy-ghost story.

How about great actors who are utterly unconcerned with genres when choosing roles? My favorite example would be Ian Holm, an award-winning actor whose career highlights include starring roles in Shakespeare and Pinter on stage and in Alien, Time Bandits, Brazil, and Lord of the Rings on screen.

Yes, that's what I said when you claimed, without presenting an argument or illustrations, that the Ultimate Cut was the ticket everyone had to buy in order to really participate in a discussion. You're doing a strange job as an advocate when I'm quite clear about why I was disappointed in Snyder's adaptation to begin with (and the Tales from the Black Freighter animation, which I have seen, suggests exactly the same problems in coming up with only a literal translation of the medium). Shoving the milk carton under my nose and demanding I have to drink it up in order to confirm it's gone off is an unconvincing tactic.

Here's a from-the-trenches account of the theatrical release of Watchmen: When I and my friends emerged from the moviehouse after seeing Watchman on opening weekend - we paid our geek dues, thanks, Mr. Snyder - those of us who'd read the original were disappointed that Snyder had put all his effort into recreating the visuals and nothing below the surface of the characters, the plot, or the mood, while those who hadn't could not understand the fuss made over what seemed like just another grim 'n' gritty deconstruction of superheroes. Similar reactions could be found everywhere, which was why we (the comic geek faithful) were begged to see it again the next weekend and head off the inevitable sharp box office drop and then blamed for not supporting it - which, I predict, will also be Sucker Punch's fate.

Unless you can mount a substantive argument in favor of the director's cut for Watchmen*, you're only preaching to the choir of Snyder fans, just as you've been trying to mount a defense of a badly performing, critically drubbed movie whose partisans have now switched to the same blame-the-audience tactic "The Problem Isn't Zack Snyder. The Problem Is You."

No, really, the problem with Zack Snyder's movies is Zack Snyder as a director/producer/writer.

* in another thread, if you'd be so kind, as though this one hasn't derailed enough.

That guy?! He was totally weak in the role.

Yes, I know this. The irony is that Snyder's attempts at fidelity - and frame for frame, he was meticulous in trying to adapt Watchmen - still manage to miss so much of what it was about.

Yes, I know this, and I know the graphic novel (Miller and Varley's highly stylized art is firing on all cylinders in it, whatever I may think of the plot or historical accuracy). Do I have to start using emoticons to denote irony when I'm comparing two movies that are exactly nothing alike? The combination would be like a Robot Chicken sketch.

Rory's arc from reluctant bystander to full-fledged TARDIS-travelling companion is a slow one, but unlike Mickey, he's been growing from the beginning.

Note that in The Eleventh Hour, he noticed something was Wrong (unlike the faintly narcissistic Pond) and was trying to investigate. Later, in the otherwise awful Vampires of Venice, he nails the Doctor with a killer observation: "You know what it's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around." And after a little pathos in Amy's Choice (a far better death scene than Cold Blood), he's proved himself absolutely worthy of inclusion in Big Bang.

I'm looking forward where season 2 takes his character, particularly since Pond's the one who's fairly fixed in place.

Glossing over the Saxe-Coburg's predilection from appeasement that ran from Edward VIII (which the film conceded) to George VI (who unconstitutionally tried to give his royal seal of approval on Chamberlain's Munich sell-out before a parliamentary debate) could be argued as a dramatic necessity to preserve sympathy for its protagonist, if one wants to condescend to the audience. "Bertie"'s dramatic arc doesn't need to shadow the historical events, and frankly, the film could have used a little tension instead of consistently portraying a stammering aristocrat as, counterintuitively, an underdog. Incidentally, the performances in the King's Speech were almost uniformly superb, with the usually reliable Timothy Spall as Churchill being the only exception.

Oh well, at least the history was better in the King's Speech than in 300.

And the obvious example of one that used it constantly throughout for valid thematic purpose would be Inception. It's not that Snyder lacks the technical skill in cinematography, just that he doesn't know how to employ it.

(It is also whitewashing historical revisionism of at its most meretricious. But that's another thread.)

The irony is, Sucker Punch bucked today's established marketing technique of using the trailer to pre-sell the movie by delivering a capsule version of it with snippets of the best dialogue, funniest jokes, coolest sequences, climactic scenes, or the denouement to the point where the audience has the vague sensation of having already seen the movie. In this case, though, there were some very disappointed fans when they saw the final product.

Wamp wamp!

That one has the intellectual depth, nuance, and humanity of the original comic? Or at least a competent actress in the key role of Silk Spectre II?

Not that there's anything wrong with that objective (one could add A/C in the summer time), but that shouldn't preclude either well-made big-budget movies or cheap disposable entertainment.

These days, Hollywood has co-opted the indie model so that they're making their versions of such films for many times over the necessary budget or, worse, pouring way too much money into "dream projects" from fanboys-turned-auteurs. And since the movie theater owners have contracted into mainly a few big chains stuck with the industry-approved distributors, we're paying $15 for every movie, no matter what its quality. And this complaint is coming from someone who enjoyed both halves of Grindhouse - it just didn't need to cost a total of $67M to produce and run in full-price moviehouses.

And from the trailers, I thought that there was a chance Snyder could bring the cool to Sucker Punch, even after seeing previous movies of his. The mounting evidence from interviews, featurettes, and other such pre-marketing deflated that possibility. With Super, all of that has only whetted my anticipation, and since the director's previous movies, Slither and The Specials, have been good low-budget fun, there's a reassuring track record.

As it turns out, Super is opening gradually, first in limited release to build up good word of mouth and critical reviews. But even if it does turn out to be a fiasco, it won't be a massive financial loss that affects the direction of an already troubled franchise.

Ironically, I've had to stay away from learning anything about Source Code beyond the premise since the director is one whose work needs to be kept surprising, although that goes directly against the marketing grain.

The "snobs and hacks" argument against reviewers does a disservice to all those out there who genuinely love movies in all their genres and would like to help films find their audiences. That such thankless, low-paying job still manages to attract intelligent, articulate people is a testament to movies' cultural importance.

That said, when these people are honor-bound to sit through an entire two-hour bloated mediocrity instead of just leaving the way a normal audience member can - and being trapped without hope of escape in a genre trainwreck works as a metaphor for both the film and its audiences - the subsequent reviews are that much more entertaining to read. And when the publications are sufficiently independent, the vitriol erupts off the page. Here are some of my favorites, from places that ordinarily would be receptive to a girls 'n' guns flick, that I picked up when trying to decide whether or not to see this film:
(I enjoy reading passionate reviews, even when they're passionately against.)

When even AintItCool has to concede the awfulness, the marketing guns are going to try every tactic they can to stop the box office hemorrhaging. Word of mouth is going to devastate it next weekend, especially with competition like Source Code and Super.

Bravo, this has to be the greatest power-fantasy overcompensation for the "Devs hate villains" trope on this thread. Mind you, this could only work in a completely different game, presumably one without heroes, and rather misses the point about Recluse's philosophy in ruling the Rogue Isles.

I could be wrong. I really don't know Kelley's TV work. I think I might have seen more of his killer croc movie Lake Placid than AllyMcBeal and The Practice combined. His on-record ambivalence about the character just doesn't inspire confidence when he should be trying to hype his new show (Whedon, for all his problems with getting his version into production, was able to come up with concise, concrete descriptions of what he felt made the character of Wonder Woman interesting). I also don't know Adrianne Palicki as an actress at all, so that's another unknown quantity.

No, but supposedly Beyonce's Single Ladies plays a prominent part in the pilot's soundtrack, along with other Kanye West's Golddigger, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, and Blondie's One Way or Another.

My "magic reviewer" sense has been tingling - and not in a good way - ever since Joss Whedon parted company and has only been mounting as the news about David E. Kelley's script broke ("It's a slightly goofy comedy-drama about a hotshot business woman who moonlights as a superheroine, packed with Girl Power pop-songs and including the awkward phrase 'You go, girl.'") and he started doing rather ambivalent interviews about his take on the character. My worst-case scenario at the moment is that this could succeed in the same way as the Batman TV show of the 60s did - a solid mainstream success that actually sets the actual character back in the public eye while turning off comics fans. Maybe it'll just come and go like the 1974 TV movie with Cathy Lee Crosby. At least there's no way it could be as bad as the 1967 failed pilot from Batman TV producer William Dozier.

We'll see how it fares when it's broadcast shortly.

"Mad World" is the new "Dear Sister". (I saw Donnie Darko on DVD well after its release and thought that the soundtrack for the finale must have been another ironic nod to the 80s.)

That's right, I have magic moviegoing vision that allows me to see through crappy knock-offs. This is my gift, my curse.

Oh, it works just fine for these limited purposes since, as I've said, the Brazil "inspiration" is obvious.

Just to establish this venue, we're discussing this movie on a web forum, not writing professional reviews for an actual publication. There are bigger issues going on in Sucker Punch, however, than Snyder's lack of anxiety of influence that people are discussing elsewhere but that I haven't yet formed an opinion about and am unlikely to do so without seeing the "hot mess" itself. I anticipate liking it even less than his Dawn of the Dead or Watchmen adaptations, which is saying something.

Moore was incensed that Watchmen was bastardized for the movie version and stayed away on general principle (even though is, ironically, the most faithful adaptation of any of his works), and Romero was not involved in the remake of Dawn of the Dead (which he said had "nothing going on underneath", a common criticism). For all Snyder's professed admiration for them, he certainly doesn't mind when they dislike his remakes of their work.

Ah, the perfect response for a jury candidate for the defense.

EDIT: In all seriousness, even though I've not sat through Mr. Snyder's latest opus, I've independently reached conclusions about it that are similar to moviegoers, here on these forums and elsewhere, and professional reviews. This is because, pace Innovator, it's obvious.

Your interest in that discussion has been only an attempt to muddy it. Snyder's "inspiration" was obvious from the get-go and confirmed by people who have seen Sucker Punch and the director himself. Only once I learned about the ending and its blatant similarity to Brazil's - while missing its point - did I employ the term "rip-off" (I'm not the only one on a 'net forum to do so).

Although someone else can have the final word here, this is my summary: For Snyder's first original movie, Sucker Punch displays far too much debt to Brazil, from its visuals and themes to its finale, without showing he's fully understood his inspiration, a pattern in his career that has ripped off George Romero (and Dan O'Bannon) and knocked off Alan Moore.

It doesn't seem to mean anything substantial if it shrugs off the director's own admission, the shared themes, and appropriated imagery (i.e. giant armored samurai antagonists that spew light when hit). There's a potentially interesting discussion to be had comparing Sucker Punch and Brazil, but you've resisted even embarking on it and instead tried to change the comparisons to other films that have less in common with the one under discussion, which at this point has been exhausted.

In the meantime, James Gunn's Super opens on Friday, so I expect to be back to discuss it here.

And Snyder, by his own admission. Either you can accept him at his word, which must lead to a critical comparison of Sucker Punch and Brazil, or you can shrug it off as a meaningless "hommage", one of numerous in the movie.
If Pan's Labyrinth (a very good film) is going to be introduced into this thread:
1) Please cite where Snyder has mentioned that movie as an inspiration for Sucker Punch (although he definitely likes Pan's Labyrinth);
2) Although one could argue that Pan's Labyrinth plays with the idea of fantasy escapism in the face of political authoritarianism like Brazil, Del Torro is pretty explicit that he was making a contemporary fairy tale, with influences ranging from Victorian horror to South American magical realism;
3) The ambiguous ending to Pan's Labyrinth, with Ofelia crowned princess of the underground realm even as her dead body is wept over in the mortal world, is cleared up by a fairy tale-style "happily ever after" voiceover narration, i.e. the film ultimately has not been Ofelia's lucid dreams. In that respect, Pan's Labyrinth's resembles Gilliam's Time Bandits much more strongly than Brazil (and Del Torro discusses Time Bandits a little more in that top ten you linked to).
When a director is given $82M to put his fantasies on screen - and no-one can accuse Snyder of not committing every dollar to do so - it's worth assessing the final product's success or failure. (Also, if nothing else, Sucker Punch is inspiring discussions among film geeks and nerds of all stripes across the 'net, even if that's not going to add anything to its bottom line.)
We're reasonably confident about where we stand on the distinction between an inspiration and a knock off (just as there's a difference between an influence on a film and the basis for it). Bringing other movies like V for Vendetta, Inception, and Pan's Labyrinth into the discussion for the sake of sarcasm hasn't clarified yours.